It is World prices we are talking about, right? Does the New York Mercantile Exchange eally dictate prices that will be valid in Europe, China, etc.?
Anyway, I hadn't heard of this Mercantile Exchange before. But whomever they report to, there is a very real possibility that they receive significant "commissions" (1) from interested parties.
(1) In Bolivia this is sometimes known as "coimisión", "coima" being slang for bribe.
>But this is what I'm trying to get to the bottom of.
>I think that, in California, they thought the same thing - that it *must* be legitimate "supply and demand" factors that were affecting the price. Later they found out that a market where people HAVE TO BUY THE PRODUCT is indeed suceptible to manipulation and that Enron was in fact manipulating, with other who also 'enjoyed' the benefit keeping quiet and counting their cash.
>
>It *IS* set (the price of oil) in a single place - apparently the New York Mercantile Exchange. So in fact it is a very small club. I want to know the membership (oil futures 'buyers') and WHO THEY REPORT TO.
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>Jim
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
